From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 01:44:01 GMT
Matt and all:
DMB had said:
I just think your project is unworkable because
Rorty himself said that he and Pirsig were incompatable.
Matt replied:
Oh, I could've answered that a long time ago. People have brought this up
several times over the last 6 months and I've answered them the same way:
Rorty's own project endorses the cooptation of others to weave together
something new. That's the essence of Rorty's cooptation of Bloom's "strong
misreading": "The critic asks neither the author nor the text about their
intentions but simply beats the text into a shape which will serve his own
purpose." ("Textualism and Idealism") Further, Rorty calls the colligation
of hitherto unrelated texts paradigms of imagination. ("Inquiry as
Recontextualization") Rorty does this, Pirsig does this, so I figure, why
not follow their lead and put the two of them together. For a further and
sustained defense of this colligation, I've just finished an essay that I'm
going to submit to Horse for the website within the next couple days (just
putting the finishing touches on my citations).
DMB says:
Your answer does not convince. I still think you're comparing apples and
oranges. So far, the infusion of Rortyisms has done nothing but confuse and
confound the issues. In fact it seems to me that you gone past the
"colligation" of two incompatable philosophies and are now trying to use the
tools of literary criticism to get at these philosophies. Maybe there a
purpose for this that I don't know about. So I'd ask, if it considered ok
for a critic to ignore the author's intention and "beat the text into a
shape which will serve his own purposes", what is your own purpose. What the
point of trying to fuse these two guys if there not on the same wavelength
to begin with. As far as I can tell the two are not even talking about the
same things. (This is not some smug protection of Pirsig as an outsider or
even to favor him over Rorty. I think they are both being abused in this
project, and so are your readers. You say Pirsig does it
(recontextualization). How about an explanation and an example. I mean, it
easy to see what its all about just because I know what the word "context"
means. Clearly this involves taking something out of its original context
and putting it in another, but beyond that I really don't know what the
process looks like or what this is supposed to accomplish.
Rorty wrote back to Matt:
Thanks very much for your message. I'll try to get around to re-reading
Pirsig.
DMB says:
Dude, this is called a polite brush-off. The man treated you like dandruff.
You must be a much stronger person than me, because I would certainly not be
encouraged by this response. I'd fold up my tent and go home. Kudos to you
for sticking with it. (By the way are you familiar with THE GUIDEBOOK TO ZEN
AND THE ART? It contains a philosophical half and a literary half, written
by two different authors. I suspect you'd get a kick out of it.)
Matt said:
That's all I ask for. For me the colligation has proved fruitful, but not
necessarily for everyone. I think the colligation has been successful
insofar as its really struck up the differences between two separate
readings of Pirsig that have caused problems here, the Kantian reading and
the Hegelian reading (as I called them recently). Its pointed out that
Pirsig seems to support universalist readings and historicist readings.
I've found this helpful. Others may not. But I don't find it very
presuasive to say that the historicist reading is wrong. As far as I can
tell, there's textual support for it. The two readings, in my mind, punch
up a tension in Pirsig's writing.
DMB says:
Hegelian or Kantian? You put alot of labels on stuff, but without any
explanation it doesn't really help. I've read Kant and I've read Hegel and I
still have no idea what you mean. (Not to mention the fact that these are
two thinkeres are among the most difficult to understand.) Univeralist
reading? Historicist reading? I don't know what that means either. This was
pointed out by who? I've never met a Hegelian or a Kantian. In fact, I've
never even met anyone who's ever met anyone like that. Wouldn't it be much
easier for you and your readers if you just gave us a Matt reading of the
text? It kind of difficult to any Pirsig through all this clutter. Again,
I'm much more impressed by clarity and concision. All these categories and
labels aren't going to mean anything when they're just asserted without any
explanations or examples. Even if you've already done this in the past, with
all the threads and posts and people here, I don't think its reasonable to
expect people to internalize anyone's particular jargon or pet projects. I
mean, posts need to be able to stand on their own like an article or a book.
Thanks.
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